TORONTO —
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is expected to make an announcement Friday afternoon alongside the new head of the province’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force.
CTVNewsToronto.ca will stream the announcement live at 1 p.m.
Earlier this week, the premier announced the retired Gen. Rick Hillier would chair the task force, which will advise the province’s development and rollout of the immunization program.
Health Minister Christine Elliott has previously said the province is likely to roll out the first doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine between January and March of 2021, followed by a second batch from March until “about” July.
But on Thursday, the health minister suggested that the timeline may not be set in stone.
“This is very concerning and very disappointing because our understanding was that this had been finalized by the federal government. Now it appears maybe it is not,” Elliott told reporters Thursday.
“So it’s really incumbent on the prime minister to stand up for Canada, and make sure that we get our share of the vaccines during the timeframes that they originally stated.”
The comments came after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada doesn’t have a strong vaccine production capacity and the first doses will likely go to other people in countries where they are produced.
The COVID-19 vaccines have not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but they could receive the stamp of approval as early as December.
Friday’s announcement also comes one day after the province released new COVID-19 modelling data showing that more than 200 COVID-19 patients will be admitted to Ontario intensive care units (ICU) in December “under any scenario.”
The government has previously said that once the number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU exceeds 150, it becomes harder to support non-COVID-19 needs, the government said. Once it exceeds 350 people, it becomes “impossible” to handle.
The modelling also suggests that if COVID-19 cases grow at a rate of three per cent, Ontario could record more than 4,000 cases per day by Dec. 30.
